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This is just a stunning example of speculative prediction. That future iPads will have higher resolution screens:

The analyst also revealed that Apple is working on a new sixth-generation iPad with a higher pixel-per-inch count than the existing 9.7-inch iPad with Retina display. Contrary to recent rumors, he doesn't expect Apple to launch a 12-inch iPad next year. The sixth-generation iPad is expected to launch in late 2014, and will pack in as much as 40 percent more pixels than the current iPad's Retina display.

I jest rather, of course. For yes of course the general trend is going to be to as greater pixel count in future generations of the iPad. The general trend in every screen technology for the past 30 years has been to greater pixel count: why would anyone think that the iPad (or indeed, any of Apple's other products) would be any different?

I've been around and about the computer industry, sometimes inside it, sometimes just as a user, for some 30 years now. And there are several trends that have been so common that they almost amount to iron laws of product development. Chips, busses and systems will get faster. There will always be more memory. And pixel counts rise. To that in this modern day we might also add that data transfer rates also rise to give us the four basics about new generational developments of hardware.

All of these have been true since the first PC right through to today. My first such PC (actually, an XT) was kitted out with a massive 10 MB hard drive. 512 kb RAM and I can't even recall how slow the processor and bus was. And yes, the pixel count was very much lower than is standard now. So the claim that future Apple's will have higher pixel counts doesn't impress all that much really.

There has however been one major difference in development over those decades. It used to be that whenever some new such tech came out you needed to buy it. For the operating systems and programs would just bloat and expand to fill the processors and memory available for them to do so in. Nowadays we seem to have got rather better at the writing of an OS like Windows or iOS. So that the extra power, memory and speed can now be used to do new things, rather than in that Red Queen manner allow you to do the same things at the same speed but just on the new version of the OS.